Goodfellas' heist trial

Brutal
details of New York Mafia life recalled in 'Goodfellas' heist trial

Tina Susman

The man in the black track suit spoke in a
voice as deep and gravelly as the pits where the bodies were buried.

He recounted a life of crime, from
small-time hustling for neighborhood mobsters to the big stuff: hijackings,
murders, beatings and drug trafficking.

From the witness stand in a Brooklyn
courtroom, Peter "Bud" Zuccaro was at ease recalling the brutal
details, like the time someone raised a hand to Fat Andy's wife and was never
seen again, or the time he blew off the head of an attack dog chewing on his
arm.

If it sounds like a Hollywood movie,
that's because it is: Martin Scorsese's 1990 "Goodfellas," which told
the story of the 1978 Lufthansa heist and its bloody aftermath. Nearly 40 years
later, Vincent Asaro is on trial on charges that he helped plan the robbery,
which netted a record $6 million in cash and jewelry, and that he was a heavy
in the Bonanno organized crime family when it held sway on the mob-infested
streets of Queens and Brooklyn.

When they unsealed the indictment
against Asaro last year, federal prosecutors described him as a onetime Bonanno
family captain who used his power to extort money, to stage major heists and to
kill those who crossed him, including a man strangled with a dog collar for
being a suspected snitch.

Asaro, who has pleaded not guilty,
could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted.

The Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy
International Airport was the "score of scores," assistant U.S. Atty.
Lindsay Gerdes said in her opening statements on Oct. 19, describing Asaro as a
"gangster through and through" who lived for money, power and the
Mafia.

But times have changed for the old-time
capos, captains, skippers and soldiers of the Cosa Nostra, who in Asaro's trial
have come across more as whiny old men than wiseguys, griping on secret
recordings about gambling debts and the lack of respect from the younger
generation.

"I lost my son when I made him a
skipper," Asaro, now 80, was heard grousing on a 2012 recording, referring
to his son Jerry's promotion in the mob. In an obscenity-laced rant, Asaro went
on to disparage his son, now in prison, as greedy, lazy and nowhere near the
tough guy that his dad is.

"I feel like killing
everybody," Asaro, in a particularly bad mood, snarled at one point on
another 2012 recording.

As the recordings played in the
courtroom, Asaro sat at the defense table looking more professorial than
predatory in a gray V-neck sweater, button-down shirt, glasses and combed-back
gray hair. But signs of temper flared as witnesses testified for the
prosecution.

They included Asaro's cousin, Gaspare
Valenti, who started wearing a wire in November 2008 after gambling away his
take of the Lufthansa loot and other illegally acquired funds. Destitute, the
68-year-old Valenti testified that he struck a deal with the FBI to become an
informant for $3,000 a month.

During Valenti's testimony, Asaro
furiously scribbled notes on yellow Post-its and handed them to members of his
defense team. He whispered loudly to his lawyers and at one point shook his
head back and forth and mouthed "not true."

Asaro appeared so enraged that Judge
Allyne R. Ross later warned him that his demeanor could affect the jury.
"It's not in your best interest to draw attention to yourself," she
said after jurors had been dismissed for the day.

Valenti violated the Cosa Nostra's code
of silence and loyalty. So did Zuccaro, now 60, who began cooperating with the
FBI five years before Valenti.

Both men's reasons for turning
underscored the hardships of life in organized crime, where one misstep can
turn a man into a pariah with a target on his back.

Zuccaro, who was associated first with
the Bonanno family and later the Gambinos, described planning his first hit. He
didn't know the man, who was ordered killed after calling a Bonanno family
member a cornuto, or cuckold.

"It's probably one of the worst
insults you can call an Italian — an Italian man, anyway," Zuccaro said.
He "clocked" the target — studying his schedule and figuring out when
he would come home — and then watched from across the street as another
gangster shot him dead outside his house.

His victims weren't limited to human
beings. Zuccaro testified that he once shot dead an attack dog that turned on
him when he entered his Queens auto repair shop, in which Asaro also had a
business interest. Zuccaro was in disguise after having just committed a
robbery and said he suspected the dog did not recognize him.

Later that night, Zuccaro testified
that Asaro showed up at his home with some fellow thugs, enraged over the dog's
death and insisting that it was not Zuccaro's dog to kill.

"I paid for half the dog,"
said Zuccaro, who testified that he turned to his boss in the Bonanno family to
settle the dispute.

Valenti and Zuccaro testified that over
the years, they gambled away whatever money they had collected from hijackings,
drugs, extortion and other crooked activities. Both admitted to a litany of
crimes.

Asaro's defense attorneys say their
client is being framed by turncoats who hope to get leniency in exchange for
their cooperation with prosecutors.

Valenti and Zuccaro insisted that
wasn't their chief reason for testifying. Rather, they said, they were tired
after decades of crime — so tired that Zuccaro wasn't interested when the
Gambino family invited him into its fold 15 years ago.

"A lot of years of watching what
was going on, a lot of years of ups and downs," Zuccaro said. "I
didn't need it."

Not long after that, facing a possible
20 years in prison on drug charges, he broke the first rule of the mob and
became an informant.

"Loyalty is A Number 1," he
said. "The family comes first, before your own family."

Asked about the other rules, Zuccaro
said: "You gotta be a good earner. And a killer."

Zuccaro said he was both.

Mafia
turncoat: ‘Goodfellas’ were livid after I killed guard dog

By Selim Algar

Killing mobsters who got out of line
was routine for these “Goodfellas” gangsters — but dogs enjoyed a status more
like “made” men, and whacking one could get your own ticket punched, a Gambino
goon told jurors Wednesday.

Mafia enforcer turned canary Peter
Zuccaro, testifying in the trial of Vincent Asaro for the $6 million 1978
Lufthansa heist, said the Bonanno wiseguy showed up to his home with three
menacing pals — all featured prominently in the 1990 Martin Scorsese flick — because
he’d killed a guard dog that attacked him.

Asaro brought with him a criminal
All-Star team including characters immortalized by Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro
and Samuel L. Jackson in the film, Zuccaro testified Wednesday.

The trained attack dog guarded an auto
body shop owned by Zuccaro’s friend, he told jurors, but it didn’t recognize
him because he was wearing a disguise after another robbery.

“The dog zeroed in on me, jumped over the
desk, didn’t recognize me and started chewing my arm,” he said. “I shot him in
the head.”

The dispute grew so heated that then
capo and future Bonanno family boss Joey Massino called sitdown to hear both
sides of the canine controversy. He ordered them to settle the beef peacefully.

Zuccaro, who famously blamed former
Gambino boss John Gotti’s extravagance for the mob’s eventual downfall, also
told jurors that he gabbed about the Lufthansa heist with Frankie Burke soon
after the score.

“He stole the van,” Zuccaro recalled. “He
drove the van and went and did the robbery. He told me Gaspare Valenti was
there in Vinny’s capacity.”

In prior testimony, Valenti, Asaro’s
turncoat cousin, told jurors that he and his relative both took part in the
theft of more than $6 million in cash and jewels from Kennedy Airport. Asaro
involved his cousin, Zuccaro said, to increase his cut of the loot.

Asaro, 80, the first person ever
brought to trial for the Dec. 11, 1978 Lufthansa job, faces life in prison if
convicted for that and a raft of mob crimes, including the 1969 killing of a
suspected rat.

Trial highlights struggles of aging wise
guys

By Lorenzo Ferrigno
and Ray Sanchez CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) —In
2008, a lifelong Mafia associate picked up the phone and dialed a random number
at the FBI in New York.

"I'd like to
cooperate," Gaspare Valenti, now 68, recalled saying on the phone to a
woman named Nora. She happened to head a federal law enforcement squad
investigating the Bonanno crime family.

"I have remorse
in me and need ways to support my family," Valenti said in the call.

For the next five
years, Valenti arranged to receive about $3,000 a month to record
conversations, including some with his first cousin, Vincent Asaro, an alleged
Bonanno family captain.

The recordings were
critical in bringing federal charges, more than 30 years after the crime,
against five alleged Bonanno crime family members in the infamous Lufthansa
heist that helped inspire part of the 1990 film "Goodfellas."The
hours of wire and telephone recordings have been played in Asaro's federal
trial in Brooklyn on a string of charges that include murder, racketeering and
the 1978 airport heist.

With the tapes,
prosecutors have sought to portray Asaro, 80, as an aging and broke wise guy,
insecure of his position within the family and nostalgic for the days when an
illegal and lucrative ecosystem controlled large swaths of New York with a
degree of impunity.

Asaro's plight
highlights the struggles of many aging wise guys, desperate to eke out a living
while trying to remain relevant in a rapidly changing underworld, according to
experts.

"It's no longer
like it used to be," said Anthony DeStefano, a journalist who has covered
organized crime for more than three decades and wrote "Gangland New York:
The Places and Faces of Mob History."

"Somebody once
told me the best job category you could have now is to be a government witness.
... You get some security from jail. You get some money. And you may get
relocated and get a new life altogether."

'Down but not out'

Government crackdowns
have thinned the Mafia ranks in recent decades.

Major arrests and
convictions in the 1980s and 1990s crippled the mob. If they didn't get whacked
first, top bosses faced multiple prosecutions and long prison terms. Among the
big names to take perp walks over the years were John Gotti, Joseph Massino and
Vincent Gigante.

The prosecutions
"made a significant dent in the mob activity," said Kelly Langmesser,
an FBI spokeswoman in New York. "The mob can be down, but not out. They
always keep coming back."

Former Gambino family
boss Gotti died of cancer in federal prison in 2002 while serving a life
sentence for murder and racketeering. Gotti became the godfather of the Gambino
family in 1985 and, shortly after, survived three criminal cases on charges
ranging from assault to racketeering, before the feds finally convicted him of
five murders in 1992.The testimony of a former friend and Gambino hitman, Sammy
"the Bull" Gravano, helped bring Gotti down.

Massino, a member of
the Bonanno family, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and received two life
sentences in 2005 after pleading guilty to involvement in eight mob murders. He
later testified against multiple mob bosses.

Vincent Gigante, a boss
in the Genovese crime family, died in prison in 2005 after his 1997 conviction
for several crimes including racketeering and conspiring to murder in aid of
racketeering.

"They're either
dead like Gotti, or they turned government witness like Joe Massino, or they're
in prison," DeStefano said.

'The old-time stuff'
is gone

For those who remain
on the street, the old-time rackets began to shrink.

"I'm not saying
the mob can't do anything or can't hurt you," DeStefano said. "But
the big rackets have been sort of tied up by the feds and the police. They
don't exist. The big labor racketeering rackets, the big concrete syndicates,
the big garment industry rackets don't exist anymore. You have local
businesses, like the restaurants, maybe an auto body shop, that could be
muscled by the mob. That's where it still works. But the old-time stuff, forget
it."

After the September 11
terrorist attacks, some FBI squad personnel were shifted from organized crime
to Asian and Russian syndicates. Counterterrorism and cybercrime units were
created and beefed up with agents who previously worked in the organized crime
division, Langmesser said.

"Even though our
priorities changed after September 11 and more ethnic crime groups grew in the
city ... our arrest records show that we are still making cases against
them," Langmesser said.

In 2011, for instance,
the FBI arrested 120 mobsters, she said.

No mob retirement plan

Valenti was one former
mobster who apparently found some security as -- in the vernacular of the mob
-- a rat.

Back when he rolled
with Mafia big shots, Valenti testified in federal district court, he was at
John F. Kennedy Airport one night 37 years ago during the Lufthansa heist.

Valenti admitted to
cutting open a gate so a van could pass through and enable associates to steal
more than $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewelry, according to testimony.

At the time of
Valenti's call to the FBI, no charges had been filed against anyone for what
was then the biggest heist in American history.

Like many aging mobsters,
Valenti was broke. The mob has no retirement plan. He had spent years borrowing
money, gambling it away and rarely paying it back. Now, he had a new baby girl
to support.

"They are
basically living sort of scheme to scheme," DeStefano said of the old
mobsters.

'We did it to
ourselves'

The recordings played
at Asaro's trial picked up multiple instances in which the defendant and
Valenti speak about earning money and then gambling away large sums.

"What a shame.
Look what we came down to," Valenti told Asaro in one recorded
conversation.

"It's life. We
did it to ourselves," Asaro replied. "It's a curse with this f*****g
gambling."

A few months later,
Asaro told Valenti that he had just played Texas Hold 'em poker for the first
time and was happy with his wins.

"I won $200.
$280, the pot was, uh, $280 -- I had to pay $80, I had to buy in again."

The cousins reminisced
about a card game years earlier when Asaro won a $37,000 pot.

"Those were the
games, man. That's when money was loose," Valenti said.

"I gave the kid a
thousand-dollar tip that night," Asaro said. "We used to play that at
John's club, $1,000 a hand." Valenti testified that the reference was to
Gotti.

Michael Franzese, who
describes himself as a former boss with the Colombo organized crime family,
called Asaro "a dinosaur," part of a legion of "made guys"
who were not real earners in their day and were now forced to scrounge around
for scores.

"Things you were
able to make money on aren't available anymore," Franzese told CNN.
"They don't have the same unions. There aren't the same card games and
runners. Neighborhoods have dried up with a lot of the Italian dominance we
once had."

'They're gonna take my
badge away'

In the taped
conversations, Asaro appears to reveal his insecurity with his place in the
family ranks. In September 2011, he told Valenti he was worried about his
"badge," or status, being knocked down because he had lashed out
against associates.

"Cause I had a
big beef last week," he continued. "Screaming at them. 'I want my
f*****g money.' I'm broke, I'm getting like a f*****g animal. Two wise guys --
I know they're gonna be talking."

In November 2011, the
cousins spoke about a New York boss who was killed in Canada. Asaro suggested
to Valenti that he might be losing power and influence.

"I don't know
what the f**k is going on in Canada. I don't even know what's going on in Ozone
Park," Asaro told Valenti.

On cross-examination,
Valenti told Asaro attorney Elizabeth Macedonio he had met with "six or
seven" FBI agents "more than 150 times" since he began
cooperating.

Asaro, a tattoo of the
Mafia mantra "Death before dishonor" tucked beneath his shirt, sat in
court and gasped in disbelief.

"More than
150?" he repeated to himself, shaking his head.

Asaro's lawyers have
said the government's case against him is built on the testimony of criminals
who cut deals with the prosecution.

In opening statements,
Asaro attorney Diane Ferrone called the government's witnesses "criminal
cooperators" with a motive to lie. She noted Valenti's history of
borrowing money he couldn't pay back and accused him of cooperating "to
make a buck. ... His latest con victim is the U.S. government."

Many old-line
gangsters remain adrift and unmoored from the old life, "a life that
doesn't exist anymore," said DeStefano, the mob expert.